2 things i would like to know

for one http://www.dreamshocker.com in the main image their with the puppies, the green and grey area's seems fairly simple to do, but i cant do it :\ can anyon shed some light on hwo to go about doing something of the sort.

and 2
http://clankod.fragism.com/gfx/vs_erazer.jpg

how do you do the crystal like effect in the background of that image, is it 3d or can you do it in photoshop, im sure these questions are fairly noobish but take it easy on me :p

the first apears to be a photo cut out ...you can use the extract tool i believe
the second i would do with the shapes tool layyering until i like the effect then mergeing the layers